Fine needle aspiration (FNA) is a widely used screening diagnostic procedure. However, only a small and finite amount of material can be obtained by FNA. The current process in the clinical laboratory does not maximally use this limited amount of material. As a result, there is typically only enough material obtained to perform initial or screening tests. The limited amount of material collected through this procedure largely inhibits further classification of the disease, which results in more invasive procedures for a more conclusive diagnosis. This not only results in increased costs, but significantly delays the diagnosis as well.
Personalized medicine and biomarker identification become more and more important in the modern medicine, especially in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Fewer amount of specimen for more tests will be the trend of the future. FNA appears to be the best procedure for this purpose. Current FNA devices have many limitations, including that the device can only be used for cell/tissue collection. Once collected, the specimen has to be transferred to different containers for further transportation to different location for further tests and each additional transfer will cause loss of portion of the specimen and time-consuming. In addition, multiple different tests require multiple individual devices collecting specimen from the same lesion which cause variation from each device and collection. In addition, the sharp needle may cause incidental injury to operators and increase the risks of blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis.
The need remains for a safer systems and methods which maximize the use of this limited material for different tests to permit a more conclusive diagnosis, information collection and time-saving to be made by a single FNA procedure alone and without the need for more invasive procedures.
Current FNA and needle biopsy procedures have certain additional side effects, including hemorrhage, pneumothorax, spreading the tumor cells along the needle pathway, et al. when the needle passes through different tissues to get into the target lesion. It is important to stop and at least reduce the extent of this damage. One method that appears to be helpful is to seal the needle pathway when the needle is drawn out of the body after having finished the cell or tissue collection. In other situations, the physicians need to inject medical materials (such as treatment or diagnostic chemicals) into the target lesion areas first and followed by collecting cells and tissues from the same areas.
There is a need, therefore, for a safer FNA system and method that addresses such side effects. In one embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provided a needle detachable syringe combined with a needle detachable cell/tissue collecting device. In one embodiment, there is provided a syringe with a detachable needle that contains chemicals in the syringe, such that when the needle reaches the target lesion areas the chemicals are injected into the lesion areas. Then the syringe detaches from the needle, the needle remains in its position, a collecting device is then attached to the proximal portion of the needle and start to collect the cells and/or tissues. In another embodiment, the collecting device with detachable needle is used first, where the needle reaches the target lesion areas to collect the cells or tissue, then the needle is detached and remains in position, wherein the needle detachable syringe containing chemicals (which, in one embodiment, seals the needle pathway) is attached to the proximal portion of the needle, and the chemical material is injected into the needle pathway when the needle is drawn from the lesion areas to the outside of the body.
Additional features and benefits will be realized through the various embodiments described herein.